LiveRamp Launches People-Based Search for Omnichannel Marketers

Enhances marketers’ ability to leverage CRM data in Google Customer Match

LiveRamp™, an Acxiom® company and leading provider of omnichannel identity resolution, today announced the addition of targeting for people-based search to its IdentityLink™ platform. The addition complements LiveRamp’s strength in people-based targeting for display, allowing marketers to better coordinate efforts across these channels and deliver more engaging and personally relevant advertising to customers.

Consumer intent is inherently expressed in search, making it a favored channel for marketers. Search has suffered, however, from the lack of audience targeting precision available at scale in display channels. With IdentityLink, marketers can now apply precision targeting broadly across search channels in coordination with their display efforts. For marketers using Google Customer Match, they have the added benefit of dramatically extending the people-based reach of their programs with IdentityLink’s new data append feature.

“Leveraging customer data in SEM initiatives dramatically improves click-through rates, but only a fraction of CRM data can be activated in search channels,” said Pat Hayden, director of paid search at Elite SEM, a performance-driven digital marketing agency. “The ability to use IdentityLink to scale people-based targeting in search, particularly Google Customer Match, will dramatically increase the value of our client’s investment.”

LiveRamp customers who have done early testing of this people-based approach to search have seen a substantial increase in ROI by doubling click-through rates (CTR) from 2-3 percent to 5-7 percent, and improving return on ad spend (ROAS) by almost 70 percent.

Marketers who pair Google Customer Match with IdentityLink’s new data append feature can further improve their ROI by deterministically matching more of their customer relationship management (CRM) audience to their search campaigns. Marketers leveraging this feature are able to target up to six times more customers than by using Customer Match alone.

“Our approach is to be as targeted and relevant as possible in our marketing. We focus on specific audiences in our display and social advertising, so applying this people-based approach to paid search was a natural progression,” said Lora Loesch, director of digital finance and paid marketing, Finish Line. “By combining IdentityLink’s data append feature with Google Customer Match, we not only simplified execution, we’ve improved our CTRs and have seen a lift in our sales results.”

In keeping with LiveRamp’s overall commitment to privacy and security as an Acxiom SafeHaven® environment, IdentityLink customers who activate audiences in Google Customer Match are also assured that their audience’s personally identifiable information (PII) is securely processed and converted into a privacy-compliant anonymous form for activation in the digital environment.

“People-based search is the single most powerful use case I have ever seen – and marketers seem to be flocking to it,” said Jeff Smith, LiveRamp chief marketing officer. “For the last decade, as display targeting has radically improved, marketers have been forced to make a choice: run ads that are contextually relevant (like search), or run ads that are targeted to the right person (like display). People-based search has eliminated the need to make this trade-off.”

To learn more, visit www.liveramp.com/people-based-search.

Register here for an upcoming SearchEngineLand webinar on people-based search.

About LiveRamp

LiveRamp offers brands and the companies they work with identity resolution that is integrated throughout the digital ecosystem, and provides the foundation for omnichannel marketing. IdentityLink transforms the technology platforms used by our clients into people-based marketing channels that improve the relevancy of marketing, and ultimately allow consumers to better connect with the brands and products they love. LiveRamp is an Acxiom company (Nasdaq: ACXM), delivering privacy-safe solutions to market and honoring the best practices of leading associations including the Digital Advertising Alliance's (DAA) ICON and App Choices programs. For more information, visit http://www.liveramp.com.

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For LiveRampAlyssa Niemiec, [e-mail]